A Love Story continued ...

(Sorry it has been a while since posted about the Love Story, so for anyone who is still paying attention I apologize. I will try to keep this going more regularly.)

The next morning dawned and I realized that I was now a father. What?! Now what? That was a brand new feeling to awaken as a father. To be honest I was feeling the glow of fatherhood but not the real pressure of being a father yet. That began to grow with each passing day and especially when Jody and our little guy came home. One of the enduring memories of that time was how I kept looking at him and remarking that “he is a little person”. I had been around babies, and even had 2 nephews, but now I was really paying attention. This was so much more than a baby, this was a whole person. This is about the time that the pressure began to build.

With the realization that our baby was a real, whole person he was just a miniature version at the moment. That realization began to produce thoughts of providing for him and all the questions about the future. I went through this phase with each of our children, but it was most pronounced with our first.

We went through all of the normal first time parenting stuff. Wishing the baby would sleep longer then worrying because he slept so long. Wondering what every sniffle or cough meant. We were sure that everything he did was remarkable, and it actually was because he was our child. We had to learn that to go anywhere now meant several extra minutes packing up and that a lot more space was needed for all the stuff. Jody seemed like a natural at this mothering thing. The biggest regret we had at this time was having a 2 story apartment, those steps got a workout.

My parents lived within a half mile of us and that was cool. I just realized that this was the only time they ever lived in the same town with any of their grandkids. Several years later we lived 30 minutes away, but this was a special time for all of us. Not only did we live close, we were attending and active in the church my Dad was pastoring so they saw us, more importantly their grandson, at all the services. Now that I have had that experience for a couple of brief periods of time as a Pastor I realize how much that means.

He was growing, we were learning and things were going well. So of course that meant it was time to shake things up. So we …